Word: aircrafting
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...first flown a decade ago and for years was armed with only an unsophisticated camera for intelligence gathering. After the fall of 2000, when Osama bin Laden was spotted in Afghanistan by an unarmed Predator, the U.S. government sped up a program to fit each aircraft with two Hellfire missiles. Awesome sounding but benign looking, the 27-ft.-long Predator is painted a dull gray and shaped like an upside-down spoon with wings. The drone is made of lightweight composite plastic and metal and has a tiny, propeller-driven engine--adapted from a snowmobile's--with a decidedly unimpressive...
...conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have proved the worth of unmanned aircraft--which are cheaper and, because there is no pilot to be shot down, politically more palatable than traditional airplanes. The thousand-plus UAVs in the military's arsenal range from tiny craft that can fit in a soldier's palm to ones the size of business jets. Military analysts are predicting that within two decades, UAVs may even take over the jobs of pilots flying fighter jets. It makes economic sense; the $4 million Predator is a bargain compared with the Air Force's newest fighter...
...Suspicions are rife, but proof still lacking, that some of the more than 300 landings in Europe by aircraft linked with the CIA since 9/11 were flights "rendering" suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to countries where torture loosens tongues. The U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch claims that Poland and Romania may have hosted secret interrogation camps, something both countries deny. And the furor only intensified when the initial response of the Bush administration was to neither deny nor confirm the allegations...
That's why Bush is calling this week for a series of border-security measures that will make his guest-worker plan look like an afterthought in his immigration policy. Bush will call for the hiring of more border guards and the use of more technology like unmanned aircraft and ground sensors to better police the borders. He will also push for increased holding facilities for illegal immigrants who are picked up. Roughly 100,000 a year benefit from a de facto "catch and release" policy, since there aren't enough beds for them...
...travel to a wider segment of the market," says MAXjet CEO Gary Rogliano. Eos is better positioned to be profitable, says Michael Mankins, a consultant with Marakon Associates. Reason: its fleet of retrofitted workhorse Boeing 757s. "The use of this plane is quite clever," says Mankins. "It's an aircraft with a low lease rate. For every seat that Eos sells, MAXjet will need to sell...